Lucky We're in Love
by firstbreaths
Summary: Lily Evans does not wear scarves to Quidditch matches.


**A/N: **Originally written for museme87's Stag and Doe comment ficathon on LJ.

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><p>Lily Evans does <em>not <em>wear scarves to Quidditch matches.

She's all about house pride, sure - so long as there aren't any Gryffindor third years hexing their Slytherin counterparts in the second floor corridor and testing exactly how far the limits of her loyalty stretch –- but scarves are itchy about the nape of her neck and sit awkwardly against the loose curls at her shoulders, and really, she's going to stop breathing the moment her boyfriend walks out on the pitch in his Quidditch robes anyway; it's almost thirty degrees out and she doesn't see much need to exacerbate the process.

She dons her Gryffindor pins and the sign that Mary made for her though, half joking but mostly-serious, _Potter is Hotter_ printed across the fabric in painstaking letters, anyway, and makes her way down towards the changing rooms for a final good luck kiss. It's almost disgusting, how much Lily revels in the power of this as she pushes her way through the crowd; they both do, not so much in the status but in the simple _security_ of knowing that they're not alone, that everything they feel for each other is real and reciprocated because even other people can see it shining brightly through.

James is standing with his back to her when she arrives, surveying the pitch intently. His eyebrows are furrowed and his naturally unruly hair is more dishevelled than ever by the wind, until it's all she can do to tangle her fingers into it from behind, spinning him to face her. Lily can see it in his eyes the moment he realises; they narrow almost imperceptibly, like he's trying to reconcile all the parts of her he knows and all the parts he wants to learn, relearn, memorise all over again.

"Nervous?" she asks, as his hands come to clasp at the small of her back.

"Is Lily Evans the best girlfriend ever?" he replies, and she grins loosely in response, crinkling her eyes. Lily knows that he is, knows how much Quidditch means to him, especially with the weight of his team and his House's expectations on his shoulders, but she gets a thrill out of hearing it, out of knowing that he trusts her enough to admit it, every single time.

"You know that's meant to be a rhetorical question, right? Or at least something that can be answered absolutely affirmatively?"

"I'm pretty affirmative in my answer, Evans, you git," he says with a playful shove, giving her a quick peck on the corner of the mouth. "It's bad enough that you're more gorgeous than me, don't go showing me up with your better use of collaquisms and grammar."

Lily just snorts as she steps away from him, turning to go, when he tugs her close again. His hand is firm against her wrist, and Lily wonders if he can feel the way her blood thrills through her, flooding through into her veins because sometimes, there's too much for her heart to hold. In a single motion, James pulls his scarf from around his neck, and drapes it over her shoulders, fingers tugging at the tassels to set it gently in place. If she didn't know better, she'd think it was a ploy to brush his fingertips gently over her chest, and –-

Who is she kidding; he's got that grin that means of course it is.

"For luck," he says, winking at her as she makes to protest, and it's all she can to raise an eyebrow curiously in response. She juts out her hip in a manner reminiscent of their old banter, both of them wanting answers to questions they didn't always know how to ask. It makes them laugh now; for someone who'd spent so long being all sharp angles and wit around James, she feels strangely circular under his touch, like they were always spinning around to this. "You're obviously going to be sitting in the stands wishing me luck, so I'm wishing you luck at wishing me luck. Or something –-"

"Or something," she agrees, before closing the gap between them and kissing him, open mouthed and suggestive. His hands come to entwine in the scarf around her neck as he kisses along her jaw, jittery and frantic with all his nervous energy. It's all Lily can do not to arch into his touch, her whole body alight like James lit a match underneath her, hot like Fiendfyre in all its dangerous intensity.

They eventually pull apart to a catcall from Sirius, and flushing brightly, she starts to unravel the scarf from around her neck, before thinking better of it. It's softer than her own, obviously sewn with love by his mother, and she finds herself breathing in James' scent, sweaty and musky and something she's never quite been able to place, despite smelling it in her Amortentia potion long before she'd realised what it meant to be in love with James.

"I think that's more than enough luck," she says, and besides: if she adjusts it right, the scarf will even hide the patch of skin that's slowly turning mottled red in another sign of Gryffindor pride down the side of her neck.


End file.
